8 of the Coolest Things We Saw at the SF Art Book Fair

Books! Zines! Hordes of people! Thursday night saw the opening of the SF Art Book Fair, as much a delight to small-press aficionados as a nightmare for claustrophobics. I can confirm: it was shoulder-to-shoulder packed.

In its seventh year, the fair held at the Minnesota Street Art Project in San Francisco’s Dogpatch district is more popular than ever, underscored by the addition of a second exhibition building (the former McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, up the street). The expansion didn’t alleviate the congestion. It did provide for plenty of exhibitors, however — a total of 145, hawking limited-run books, zines and prints of all styles and subject matter to the beanie-and-tight-jean set.

I spent a few hours at the fair, looking for the coolest, weirdest, most intriguing printed matter on offer. Here are eight things that caught my eye.

‘The Mission District’

(StreetSalad, $40)

In 1980, out of his shop on 23rd Street in San Francisco, comics legend Gary Arlington began paying neighborhood teenagers to make one-page illustrations. Eventually, he compiled them into a periodical titled The Mission District, filled with pencil drawings and Chicano-style lettering. Now, StreetSalad’s Tron Martínez has reprinted them, along with the more scrapbook-like Cholo, out of San José, both perfectly capturing the Teen Angels-type aesthetic of the cholo and lowrider scenes. As for Gary’s shop, “underground comic book culture really permeated out of there,” said Martínez.

‘Emeryville Cool Fun Booklet’

Jessalyn Aaland (Current Editions, $15)

In 2020, four years after moving to Emeryville from Oakland and in the throes of COVID lockdown, Jessalyn Aaland decided to learn more about the history of her new city. Each new rabbit hole resulted in an issue of Emeryville C☺☺L Fun Facts, a monthly one-page newsletter covering Emeryville’s canneries, labor strikes, 1980s punk scene, public art, streetcar lines and more. With a Risograph printer at home and a pandemic yearning to return to more human ways of connecting, she stapled her insightful, chatty and often hilarious newsletters to poles all around town, adding a phone number at the bottom. Emeryville Cool Fun Booklet compiles all nine issues, along with responses from readers who called the number. (“An older woman was like, ‘I live alone,’ and told me stories about her landlord,” Aaland said.) I brought it home and devoured it in one sitting.

‘The Invisible’

Barbara Stauffacher Solomon (Colpa Press, $40)

When Colpa Press’ Luca Antonucci first met supergraphics pioneer Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, she was making her own books at Kinko’s in San Francisco. Now, two months after Solomon’s death at age 95, he’s printed their fifth and final book together, spiral-bound in an edition of 200. Made of collages that Stauffacher Solomon cut and pasted directly to a Swiss Grid, The Invisible was turned in by Stauffacher Solomon just two weeks before her death in May — along with attached instructional notes, handwritten, which Antonucci opted to include. “Scanning them was super emotional,” he said, “almost as if she was talking to me from beyond the grave.”

‘You’re Gonna Miss Me / For Your Love’

(The Tymes 5 feat. Michael Jang, $16)

Visitors to this year’s fair may notice a large wheatpaste nearby at 23rd and Tennessee, the handiwork of the dizzingly prolific Michael Jang. A San Francisco photographer, street artist and subtle prankster, Jang once also… played in a 1960s garage band?! Here’s the proof: a 7″ of The Tymes 5, for which Jang played guitar, recorded in 1965. Covering songs by the 13th Floor Elevators and the Zombies, the band is out of tune, the vocals are overblown, the tempo-challenged drums sound like cardboard boxes. It’s great! “They’ve been selling like crazy — more than we expected,” said Park Life’s Zafron Munkres. The huge wheatpasted advertisement down the street probably doesn’t hurt.

‘Bodega Rider’

Martha Naranjo Sandoval (Matarile Ediciones, $14)

Not everything at the SF Art Book Fair is local. Distributed by Brooklyn’s Seaton Street Press, this photo zine contains the artist’s self-portraits on coin-operated sidewalk rides outside bodegas in New York City. What captivated me were the range of emotions on Naranjo Sandoval’s face while revisiting these childhood sources of joy: excitement at seeing them, nostalgia for what they once provided, sadness at their decreasing prominence, frustration at aging out of simple pleasures. “She’s publishing for immigrants, specifically, in the diaspora,” said Seaton Street’s Lindsay Buchman, but anyone who spent 90 seconds and 50¢ on a bucking horse stationed outside a storefront will relate.

‘How to Art Book Fair’

Paul Shortt (Shortt Editions, $10)

Talk about meta! This guide to art book fairs was being sold at the art book fair by Paul Shortt, who’d woken up Thursday morning at 3:30 a.m. in Florida before flying to San Francisco. “There’s a lot of books that teach you how to make books,” he said, “and not a lot of books that teach you how to sell books.” (He should know; he’s been to over 50 art book fairs in the past decade.) I’d assumed this zine would be a snarky troll on art book fairs, but no — it’s a practical guide to their ins and outs, drawn from Shortt’s experiences as a vendor (“I’m very clear in the book about my own failures,” he quipped), and input from other veterans of the scene. Most of the advice is uber-specific, while some is refreshingly simple, like “don’t be a jerk.”

‘If You Listen, Music Will Find You: 35mm Photographs of the Bay Area Underground’

Ezra Gonzalez (Nematode, $30 each)

It’s a guarantee that your older punk friends have complained that music sucks now, or that the scene is dead. To which I always say: go to more shows! Now, there’s a tangible document to rebut those beardy, complainy denim-vest dudes: under the namesake Nematode, Bay Area photographer Ezra Gonzalez has published two volumes documenting the local underground music scene. Spanning 2018–2020 and 2021–2023, the photos contain a few recognizable spots (Eli’s Mile High Club, the Rickshaw Stop), but most come from shows at basements, sidewalks and house parties. “It’s been really fun since we got them,” says Matt Brownell, co-owner of Cone Shape Top in Oakland. “People pick up the book and say ‘I was at this show!'” Here’s to more photo books documenting the Bay Area’s rich DIY punk scene. (Please do it, Rob Coons!)

‘Advertising Shits in Your Head: Strategies for Resistance’

Vyvian Raoul and Matt Bonner (PM Press, $15.95)

While wandering around the Art Book Fair, it’s easy to be seduced by eye-catching book titles (What Is Post-Branding?, 8-Bit Porn Video Games, Uncreative Writing by Taylor Swift). Some of these clever titles deliver on their promises, while many do not. This is, in effect, a microcosm of the advertising world! So I was glad to discover that Advertising Shits in Your Head is backed up by substance as well as humor. Along with a primer on how advertising intrudes on our daily mental lives, the book focuses on “subvertising” — the art of altering, remixing or defacing billboard and poster ads. “A lot of these things, like bus kiosks, are easy to get into. And if it looks like it belongs there, it’ll stay there for a while,” says Dan from Oakland’s PM Press. “It’s a public space! Use it for your own means!”